UNESCO’s latest Director-General’s report records 189 journalists and media workers killed in 2024 and 2025, 20 percent more than in the previous two years and the highest total since 2014 to 2015. The proportion of killings that go unpunished rose to 86 percent, up one point and the first increase since UNESCO began measuring impunity in 2012.
The deterioration is concentrated in war. Of the dead, 127, or 67 percent, were killed in conflict zones, where impunity runs close to 100 percent, and drone strikes killed 50 journalists, 40 percent of the conflict zone total. UNESCO documented seven incidents in which several journalists were killed in a single attack, including strikes on media workplaces. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said at least 34 journalists were killed over the past year alone.
Outside conflict zones the trend still improves. Impunity in non conflict countries has fallen from 94 percent in 2012 to 77 percent in 2026, and the 85 killings recorded in non conflict settings are the lowest in 18 years. UNESCO Director-General Khaled El-Enany called for enforcement of UN Security Council Resolution 2222, which treats journalists as civilians in armed conflict.
The report’s political weight is in the split: prosecution systems work where states choose to run them, and fail almost completely where the killings are done by armed forces in active wars, including the wars covered elsewhere in this edition.